Blizzard has changed around the way patch files are stored on Windows Vista. They are no longer stored under the C:\Program Files\World of Warcraft\Patches directory. They are now stored under the C:\Users\Public\Documents\Blizzard Entertainment\World of Warcraft directory. This change is due to the way that Window Vista and Microsoft wants programs to store internal documents and settings, which is technically what a patch is.

This might be confusing to some people expecting to go in and make a mirror of the patch for guildies and friends, or copying the files over to multiple computers to cut down on the update time.

Burning Crusade content offline - Tue, 25 Mar 2008 19:30:00 ESTAccording to numerous reports and several personal experiences, much of the Burning Crusade content is offline on several servers, both in the U.S. and the E.U.. When attempting to access a character in any of these locations you will be presented with an error that says "World Server Down."

Get your bare bones raiding addons here - Tue, 25 Mar 2008 19:00:00 ESTTonight many people are going to rush into raiding. It's going to be a fun time for many - perhaps you're going to explore the Sunwell Plateau for the first time, or perhaps you'll no longer be stuck at 5/6 and 3/4. Rage Winterchill awaits you and he's a big push over. He goes boom pretty easily.

The common component amongst all of us raiders, whether we're in Kara or pushing onto Sunwell, is that we need addons to make our life easier. There are several necessary ones: Deadly Boss Mods, Omen, ora2, Recount, DrDamage, etc... If you don't have these tonight, things can get markedly more complicated and difficult. The big problem with getting these addons is that they can be dreadfully hard to get a hold of. Most sites are bogged down to the point they're not working.

So let me make this easier for you. I've provided mirrors of several key updated patch 2.4 mods that I'll be using tonight to raid. Feel free to grab them from the links I've listed after the break. They'll only be up on these links for the next 24 hours or so - after that I'll replace the links with the addon's main site. The traffic should have subsided by then.

So, by now I'm sure many of you have made your way to the Sunwell and started figuring out the daily quests. You've probably checked out our walkthroughs of the new dailies for Shattrath and the 1st phase of the offensive, and gotten your bearings pretty well. Still, there's a lot of quests to deal with, and it can understandably get a bit boggling sorting through them all.

That's where Infamy of Dirt Dog Gaming steps in, with a very handy chart that breaks down all the various phases of the offensive with handy color coding indicating which quests are progressive towards unlocking content. It's definitely a very nicely done resource, and one which should help you plan out your daily runs as you work towards exalted SSO reputation, epic flying mount money, or just unlocking the island completely. Check it out!

I've spent the day collecting patch mirrors for everyone. Some may require a short free registration. All of them are sources I, and others, use and trust. However with that said, we can't be responsible if something goes wrong. But I've never heard of that happening.

I'd like to interrupt your patch 2.4 coverage for this important announcement.This Saturday, 29 March is your first opportunity to get an early look at the Servants of the Betrayer expansion to the World of Warcraft Trading Card Game. Upper Deck welcomes players of all skill levels.

If you love Vanity pets, this may be the time to start playing WoW TCG. The new set will feature the new super common consumable loot card: Papa Hummel's Old-Fashioned Pet Biscuit, which adds growth counters to a party pet in the TCG.It can be traded in the MMORPG for biscuits that boost the size of cosmetic pets.

And finally we hit on Amanda's Azerothian General Election, which you can still vote on right now -- Thrall is still winning, so Alliance, you better grab your sword and fight the Horde.

We did check in reader email, too, and Turpster says he's headed to 70, so we asked for your input on what kind of reward (or punishment) we can give him if he makes it before Wrath -- if you have a suggestion, email us at theshow@wowinsider.com.

And speaking of Turpster, you've got to see his new TurpsterVision over at Massively today -- it's a spectacular tale of a galaxy long ago and far away, if you know what I mean.

I'm back! RL got the best of me just after writing my first post here for my favorite WoW site. There is no better time to return than on a new patch that finally releases a new 25-man raid dungeon. It's been just over 10 months since Blizzard released the last 25-man instance, The Black Temple. Like patch 2.1, patch 2.4 promises to be a major content patch that should keep us busy raiding for the foreseeable future, at least hopefully until WotLK.

"But my guild is no where near Sunwell. Who cares about another raid instance that I will never step foot into?" Unlike patch 2.1, which had a complicated attunement process for The Black Temple, this patch removes all attunement requirements for all TBC raid instances. This change, along with many other changes included in patch 2.4 transforms the current raiding landscape giving the raider more paths to take. Whether you're a guild doing SSC/TK or (un)patiently waiting for Sunwell for the past six months, this patch affects you in some way. Find out how these new changes will affect your raiding experience.

The realms are starting to trickle online now. Eldre'Thalas is up, and I'm sitting online enjoying a long ride up to Ghostlands to get to the Sunwell Plateau. You'll find a long list of other realms online if you log into the game now. Hopefully one of them will be yours. But if not, don't worry. Blizzard has said they'll be finishing things up by 12:30 p.m. PDT, and it looks like they're set to make that target.

Expect things to be bumpy for the next few hours, and then hopefully smooth sailing tonight. If a large amount of realms do go offline, or if everything has to be taken down for additional fixes, we'll have it covered here on WoW Insider.

Every Tuesday, Shifting Perspectives explores issues affecting druids and those who group with them. This week John Patricelli, sometimes known as the Big Bear Butt Blogger, postpones the final part of the bear tanking strategy guide once again to focus on druid changes in today's patch 2.4.

Yeah, yeah, I know. Leveling guides still need to be written, tanking strategy article gets put off yet another week.

If anyone ever told me before I started this gig that I'd have too many breaking news stories to discuss to write big posts in a long series, I'd have laughed at 'em.

I guess the lesson here is that World of Warcraft is a continually growing game, and sometimes we have to act fast to stay on top of the changes.

As much as I'd like to hand you Episode III: Return of the Bear Strats, I bet with the patch hot and heavy, most of you are a lot more interested in knowing how we stand with the excellent druidy goodness.

Sigh. So long, bear strategy. Hopefully next week. Unless we get a hot annnouncement of new druid content coming in the next expansion, or shocking undocumented patch changes, or something.

One thing you can be sure of... there will be some folks that have every badge reward they want on patch day, and others will continue, like me, to scrimp and save.

Either way, look on the bright side. It'll be nice to have at least a week before people start complaining of being bored again.

Let's do a nice roundup of all the various changes and additions coming to the druid class, so everybody can plan what they want to do first. Just follow along past the break!

WoW Rookie: What the hell is going on today? - Tue, 25 Mar 2008 14:20:00 ESTWe heard from a few people either new or returning to WoW that the amount of information overload on our front page was reaching critical mass, so it occurred to us that it might not be obvious why the fabled Patch Day is such a ("Dogs and cats living together! Mass hysteria! Details at 10!") big deal in these here parts. Here's an older WoW Rookie on "What is a patch?" from Amanda Dean if you're new to the business of how Blizzard updates its content.

For the uninitiated, Patch 2.4 is what is known as a "content patch," which is a sanitized version of saying "A ton of stuff gets added to the game and all hell breaks loose." This particular patch doesn't contain a lot of new content for people still leveling their first character, so you're unlikely to notice any differences unless you have a fairly high-level toon being affected by the class changes coming in or one who was beginning Karazhan attunement, which is no longer required. Apart from that, a rare new-5 man is being added (Magister's Terrace), a new endgame 25-man raid (Sunwell Plateau), and a host of new quests and a rep grind if you've got a toon at nearing 70.

Extended maintenance extended - Tue, 25 Mar 2008 14:10:00 ESTA fresh popup from the in-game breaking news section tells us that the extended maintenance has been extended until 12:30 p.m. PDT. They are hard at work getting patch 2.4 ready.

If Blizzard is actually able to pull this patch off with these short down times, I believe it'll be the first one that they've not had to extend maintenance by hours and hours and hours. I for one am hopeful that they'll be able to do this, and am looking forward to some afternoon romping around Sunwell Isle.

Our coverage, and your comments and tips, have been non-stop today! Keep checking back with us throughout the day and the evening for the latest. We'll be sure to post and let you know when the servers are up - whenever that may be.

In its gestational stages, Patch 2.4 threatened to be a PvP landscape-changing patch with the controversial change to Life Tap and ill-advised buff to Flametongue. Those proposed changes won't make it live, however, and it looks like World of Warcraft PvP won't be drastically different than it was pre-patch. But there are several key changes that affect PvP, some classes more than others. Because there are no major significant changes to class mechanics or abilities, I don't expect the environment to change. But the best thing about PvP is that it's all about the little things, and Patch 2.4 brings a lot of little things into play.

Class changes Most classes received changes that many felt were aimed towards balancing Arena play. Classes that were perceived to be over-represented in Arenas, such as Druids, received some nerfs while under-represented classes such as Shamans, received some buffs. Warlocks were initially thought to be on an upswing trend, prompting Blizzard to whip up the nerf bat. Fortunately, Blizzard noticed that the trend plateaued and eventually held off on the move. Despite the lack of radical changes, Patch 2.4 affects the PvP environment in a lot of ways, more for some classes than others.

Development servers in live? - Tue, 25 Mar 2008 13:50:00 ESTWith the game updated to patch 2.4, and the servers "scheduled" (I use the term loosely) to come online in 15 minutes, I'm presented with a nice little server selection box when I log in. Complete with a new location (Blizzard's catogorization, not mine) to choose: "Development."

What is this?

When clicking the name I'm not seeing anything different. It still shows the realms off line. In fact, it's the only option. Now my memory isn't completely clear here, as it's something I've always just clicked on, but for my U.S. account the options there have always been "United States" and "Oceanic." So what's this new tag about? The only time I've seen this has been on the PTR.

I have a few guesses.

First, and quite likely the most plausible explanation, is that it is an artifact of the servers being upgraded. Blizzard takes the servers down, the put them into a special mode, and they update them as needed. That could be all this tag is about.

Magister's Terrace round-up - Tue, 25 Mar 2008 13:40:00 ESTIf you're like me, you'll be running the brand-new 5-man dungeon of 2.4, Magister's Terrace, as soon as you can. How can you not love a 5-man with four bosses borrowing elements from 25-man raids, a cutscene, and a guaranteed epic even on normal? If you're looking for more information on what to expect, here's a round-up of WoW Insider's coverage to date and our Magister's Terrace gallery.

Follow the cut for a host of helpful articles on bosses, drops, videos, and scenery!

So, 2.4 is live, (some of) the servers are up -- did you really expect things to go smoothly? -- and you're raring to head to the Isle of Quel'danas and start kicking some legion behind in the name of justice and awesome badge loot. But before you go, just remember that you can't do it all on the first day. That's not only because you have to take a break from WoW sometime, but because there's a few things that will only be unlocked for your enjoyment with time and/or completed dailies.

If baby creatures aren't your thing, there's also a number of new mounts available with the Sunwell patch. Two new PvP mounts: the Black War Elekk and Black Swift Warstrider. Information on obtaining these new mounts as well as pics can be found in our PTR post.

Finally, the new Rocket Mount will be introduced in either blue or red. This can only be gained through a World of Warcraft Trading Card Game loot card. Or, you know, EBay.

Patch 2.4 sounds great, but what's in it for you? Find out on our Sunwell Isle page where we list the impact on classes, professions, PvP, Raiders and many other playstyles and interests. Looking for more great info? Check out the WoW Insider Directory for the best of our guides and analysis.

Going Priestly in patch 2.4 - Tue, 25 Mar 2008 12:40:00 ESTWith patch 2.4 live, lets take a look at what it's offering those of the more Priestly persuasion. Gear, a few talent and spell changes, and some new fun in the new instances will be a boon for your Priest.

For our Shadow brothers, you can now look forward to Fear Ward in Shadowform and a somewhat nerfed Vampiric Touch (they've fixed the bug where casting lower ranks wasn't penalized like other healing spells are).

We have also compiled all of the upcoming changes for each profession into two round-up posts, including linkage and summaries of materials and costs.

For miners, blacksmiths, engineers, and fishermen, check out your complete guide to crafting 2.4. If you are a jewelcrafter, enchanter, tailor, alchemist, herbalist, leatherworker, or cook, we have compiled all things 2.4 for you. Both post have news and information about crafting reagents.

While I liked the video, there were some obvious flaws with it. The aspect ratio seems wonky, and the page turns are pretty cheesy. However, I thought that the surprise in the middle broke the music video up nicely. What's your favorite WoWmusic video?